Staff photo / Preston Byers. Howland’s Adam Heckman attempts to trip Joey Brocklehurst of Minerva in the first round of the Division II 132-pound championship bracket at the OHSAA state wrestling tournament on Friday in Columbus.

COLUMBUS — In the sixth grade, Adam Heckman won just one wrestling match the entire season. As a high-school senior, Howland’s 132-pound superstar was just one win away from becoming a state wrestling champion.

Heckman lost a competitive championship final 11-7 to Bishop Hartley’s Aiden King on Sunday in Columbus at the Ohio High School Athletic Association (OHSAA) state tournament. The loss concludes a historic career at Howland, during which Heckman won more than 120 matches and became the single-season takedown leader in school history.

But Heckman’s story isn’t about records broken or matches won and lost, it’s about self-improvement.

“You don’t always have to be the one winning or getting all the awards and all that. As long as you’re trying your best, that’s all that matters,” Heckman said.

After that one-win season in sixth grade, Heckman decided it was time to take wrestling seriously. He joined a club in middle school and started to see progress immediately.

Heckman went winless at the sectional tournament as a freshman, but the next year, he reached the sectional final. At the district tournament, he finished in fifth place, just one win shy of qualifying for the state tournament.

As a junior, Heckman’s work started to pay off more than it ever had before. He won the sectional title, narrowly lost in the district final and qualified for the state tournament for the first time in his career.

In Columbus last year, Heckman was pinned by King in the championship quarterfinal. But as he always does, Heckman dusted himself off and got back to work. He rattled off three consecutive wins in the consolation bracket, ultimately finishing fourth at 126 pounds. He ended the season with a 45-6 record, a 14-win improvement from the year before.

Heckman returned for his senior season bigger, stronger and with a sharpness he had been perfecting for years. Howland head wrestling coach Matt Zakrajsek said Heckman went to multiple clubs in the offseason to get as much mat time as possible and had developed a routine of 250 pushups per day.

As a result, the leap he made as a senior was noticeable. Heckman won his first 14 matches of the season, surpassing 100 career wins in the process. But then came his match with Jaiden Sarabia of Toledo Whitmer.

In Heckman’s last match of 2023, Sarabia defeated him 15-3 in the finals of the Medina Invitational Tournament right before New Year’s.

“[I] wasn’t wrestling tight, I wrestled his match. He knew I was gonna be coming at him and he kind of acted on it,” Heckman said.

Never one to dwell and feel sorry for himself, the loss instead became a reminder to Heckman.

“There’s probably some old saying like the ‘hungry lion will hunt harder’ or whatever,” Heckman said. “It shows anyone’s beatable, and you just gotta keep going.”

After the loss, Heckman tore through his competition. He beat his four pool play opponents at the Howland Invitational in January by a combined score of 99-39, defeating them each by technical fall. In the finals of the tournament, he scored a pinfall victory to win the championship.

He similarly cruised to the Eastern Ohio Wrestling League tournament final the next weekend with one pinfall and two technical fall wins before a 9-6 decision victory over Beaver Local’s Bobby Buchheit to win yet another tournament.

Heckman then won his second consecutive sectional title at West Branch and dominated the Division II district tournament in Kenston — he won each of his four matches by at least seven points to capture his first district championship.

Heading back in Columbus for a second straight year, Heckman said he approached the state tournament just like he had all the others. So naturally, he came out strong.

Heckman pinned his first-round opponent, Minerva’s Joey Brocklehurst, before defeating Tucker Campbell of Franklin 10-4 to qualify for the state semifinals for the first time in his career. Clearing the quarterfinals, which he had failed to do in 2023, meant a lot to Heckman.

“It means you improved, you did better than last year,” Heckman said. “It shows that you’re still advancing in the sport and getting at it.”

To advance to the state final, Heckman had to get past Cannan Smith of Chillicothe, a 43-3 district champion who pinned his first state opponent in 53 seconds and dominated his second 16-1. But Heckman’s not like other wrestlers.

Known for his aggressive, attack-based style, Heckman caught Smith in the second period and scored the pinfall, punching his proverbial ticket to the state final.

On Sunday, as he stood 25 feet across from King during the state finalists’ introductions, Heckman didn’t try to stare down and intimidate his opponent. Instead, he smiled and took the time to survey the Schottenstein Center crowd.

The match, for the first time since his encounter with Sarabia in Medina more than two months earlier, didn’t go Heckman’s way. After a scoreless first period, King shot and took down Heckman just seconds into the second. Heckman recovered and managed to momentarily tie it back up 2-2, but King gained control once again and established an 8-2 lead by the beginning of third period.

In the final period of Heckman’s high school career, he did what any coach would ask of him: never give up. Heckman reversed King and made the Bishop Hartley standout feel the pace and pressure Heckman is always able to supply, but time ran out.

Sunday’s loss to King clearly stung Heckman, who has spent countless hours toiling away on a wrestling mat and said Saturday that a state title is “what every high schooler is working towards in their career.”

But just as the hundreds of wins, pair of sectional titles, division championship and school records don’t define him, neither does a loss.

What does define him then?

“Integrity,” Zakrajsek said. “The kid does everything the right way. From the classroom, in the practice room, family life. He does everything the way that it’s supposed to be done.”

Heckman, who has a 3.93 GPA according to Zakrajsek, will continue his education and wrestling career at the Naval Academy. True to form, Heckman is already thinking of the self-improvement that can be accomplished in Annapolis.

“It’s a very regimented, disciplined place,” Heckman said. “[There are] a lot of great opportunities and I’ll further myself as a human just by going there.”

The work never stops.

Have an interesting story? Contact Preston Byers by email at pbyers@tribtoday.com. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, @PresByers.